Please read these important notes before proceeding:

(We apologise that this is so long!)

When you apply for an account with Churches’ Mutual, we ask you provide information about yourself. This includes information about who you are, where you live, and who you bank with. This information is sent through our secure website to ‘CallCredit’ an external credit reference bureau who validates the information given and provides us with a report in order to satisfy identity checks and Anti-Money Laundering legislation.

Full details of how CMCU treats your personal information can be found on our Privacy Notice

If you are happy to provide Churches’ Mutual with information to use in this way and you have checked you are eligible to join please proceed to the account application page by pressing the ‘Click Here’ button below. If you are not willing to provide this information please contact us via the contact form on the Home page of this website but please be aware that we cannot open an account for you if we are unable to verify your identity.

Am I eligible to join?

To be eligible for membership of Churches’ Mutual Credit Union Ltd applicants must share a ‘common bond’ with existing members. Churches’ Mutual Credit Union Ltd offers individuals membership through association with the Anglican Churches of Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the United Reformed Church, the Catholic Church in England & Wales and the Catholic Church in Scotland.

Please read the following statements carefully:

I am an elder, a lay or ordained minister or training for ministry in an Anglican Church in Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Catholic Church in England & Wales and the Catholic Church in Scotland or the United Reformed Church. (This category includes active or retired clergy and ministers, and elders of the Church of Scotland or the United Reformed Church).

I am an employee or trustee of a National, Regional or Local Church institution or office of the Anglican Churches of Great Britain the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Catholic Church in England & Wales and the Catholic Church in Scotland or the United Reformed Church.

I am an employee or trustee of a charity of the Anglican Churches of Great Britain, the United Reformed Church or of the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church in England & Wales or the Catholic Church in Scotland (this includes Church Council members, and employees and trustees of church voluntary aided schools and academy trusts).

I am a household member of any of the above.

If you are able to answer YES to at least one of the above statements and once you have read the notes below:

If you cease to act as a trustee or employee at some point in the future you will be able to maintain your membership. The important thing is that you qualify at the point of joining CMCU.

Paying a Small Fee

Once you have completed the joining process you will be asked for a £10 debit card payment. £5 will be the joining fee (which is non-refundable) and £5 your initial deposit. Within two working days you will be contacted by email with more information on the next stage of account opening.

If you would like more information regarding the accounts, or if you are unsure if you qualify or you are a qualifying corporate entity please contact the credit union on admin@cmcu.org.uk

Privacy Notice

Introduction

We are committed to protecting our members’ privacy. The credit union requires any information marked as mandatory for membership to either meet legal obligations or to enable us to perform our contract with you. Where you are not able to provide us with this information, we may not be able to open an account for you. Where we request further information about you not required for these reasons, we will ask you for your consent.

to perform activity for the prevention of money laundering and financial crime

to carry out internal and external auditing

to record basic information about you on a register of members

2.2. For performance of our contract with members

to deal with your account(s) or run any other services we provide to you;

to consider any applications made by you;

to carry out credit checks and to obtain and provide credit references

to undertake statistical analysis, to help evaluate the future needs of our members and to help manage our business

2.3. For legitimate interests

to conduct activity for the purposes of debt recovery

2.4. With your consent

to inform your of products and services by direct marketing (unless you specifically objected to this), or to conduct market research.

As a member of the credit union you agree that we can send you statements, new terms & conditions, information about changes to the way your account(s) operate and notification of our annual general meeting.

3. Sharing personal information

3.1 CMCU will disclose information outside the credit union only:

to third parties to help us confirm your identity to comply with anti-money laundering legislation

to credit reference agencies and debt recovery agents who may check the information against other databases – private and public – to which they have access

to any authorities or other parties if compelled to do so by law (e.g. to HM Revenue & Customs to fulfil tax compliance obligations)

to fraud prevention agencies to help prevent crime or where we suspect fraud;

to any persons, including, but not limited to, insurers, who provide a service or benefits to our members for us in connection with their account(s);

To our suppliers in order for them to provide services to us and/or to our members on our behalf

to anyone in connection with a reorganisation or merger of the credit union’s business

4. Where we send personal information

4.1. While countries in the European Economic Area all ensure rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that may not be quite so rigorous and do not provide the same quality of legal protection and rights when it comes to your personal information.

The credit union does not directly send information to any country outside of the European Economic Area, however, any party receiving personal data may also process, transfer and share it for the purposes set out above and in limited circumstances this may involve sending members’ information to countries where data protection laws do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.

For example, when complying with international tax regulations we may be required to report personal information to the HM Revenue and Customs which may transfer than information to tax authorities in countries where the member or a connected person may be tax resident

5. Retaining Personal information

CMCU will need to hold information for various lengths of time depending on what we use the data for. In many cases we will hold this information for a period of time after the member leaves the credit union but this must be reasonable and clearly stated.

A summary of our policy for retaining members’ data is available here and a full copy is freely available upon request from admin@cmcu.org.uk.

6. Credit Referencing Agencies

In order to process credit applications CMCU supplies personal information to credit reference agencies (CRAs) in exchange for information about the applicant, such as financial history. This is a legitimate interest as it allows CMCU to assess creditworthiness and product suitability, check identity, trace and recover debts and prevent criminal activity.

CMCU will also continue to exchange information about members with CRAs on an ongoing basis, including about settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time. CRAs will share information with other organisations. This data will also be linked to the data of a spouse (if applicable), any joint applicants or other financial associates. This may affect an individual’s ability to get credit.

The identities of the CRAs, and the ways in which they use and share personal information, are explained in more detail by:

To provide you with a good online journey, we will store a number of cookies on your machine, to help us associate important information with you.

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies, such as Google Analytics, to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

9. External Links

You may encounter links to external websites when using our website, this policy does not cover these websites and we encourage you to view each website’s privacy policy before submitting any information.

10. How to Contact Us

If you want more information on how we use and hold your data, or if you think we may be holding incorrect information, please get in touch on the details below and we will happily review the information we store. We will keep all the records we have on you unless you tell us otherwise.

If you would like to request a copy of all the personal details we are holding on you then please get in touch on the details below.

If you no longer wish us to hold your personal data, please contact us on the details below. Please note that we may not be able to provide you with our services without access to your data.